May 27, 2007

Terracycle manufactures organic gardening products made from worm poop. The poop is liquified into a potent yet Eco-friendly plant food and then packaged using reused soda bottles. Terracycle collects the bottles, washes them and then pays you for sending in the bottles. Evidently the tiny but brilliant Terracycle located in Trenton New Jersey has scared the pants off of big huge conglomerate Scotts Miracle-Gro. Terracycle is now being sued by Miracle-Gro on two counts.

1. Scotts claims that Terracycle's packaging looks too similar to Miracle-Gro and will confuse customers, (are you kidding me?) because of the green and yellow label and depicted flowers/veggies.

2. Scotts also objects that TerraCycle says its plant food is as good or better than "a leading synthetic plant food" and is refusing Scotts' demands that TerraCycle hand over its scientific tests conducted at the Rutgers University EcoComplex. Miracle-Gro also refuses to hand over it's findings to Terracycle.

Terracycle has earned the Zerofootprint seal. In it's search for 20 oz soda bottles the company will "donate $0.05 to the charity of your choice or save 10 square feet of the rainforest through The Nature Conservancy. We provide four boxes with prepaid UPS labels and all you have to do is mail them back full of 20 oz. soda bottles with the labels removed. After they're cleaned, your bottles are used to package TerraCycle Plant Food™. To date, we have been able to rescue over 1,524,382 bottles."

Wanna sign up to help Terracycle's search for bottles? I did! Sign up here.

This is an inspiring story about sustainability and responsible design on so many levels. I wish Terracycle all the best.

Not sure if this is true, but on the blog Apartment Therapy, where I originally read about Terracycle, commenter Chris Johanesen states that on the label of Miracle-Gro, Scotts claims to "own" the green color when used on lawn and garden products!!

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